


Gift

by hollyandvice (hiasobi_writes)



Series: Holly's Round Six Trope Bingo Card [20]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 06:51:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7303987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiasobi_writes/pseuds/hollyandvice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People--aliens, these days--are always giving Bones gifts, as though they think he does what he does for compensation, and not because it's the right thing to do, or because he's damn good at it. He doesn't think much of them any more. Not until he gets a gift that completely changes the course of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my Round Six Trope Bingo Card.

The delivery had been complicated, to say the least, but Leonard's good at his job--always has been--and he manages. All six of the babies are fine, swaddled and resting beside their mother, M'kaela, who can't seem to believe that they're there with her. Eventually, she looks up at Leonard, eyes wide and green and honest. "Your compensation--"

Leonard shakes his head. "There's no need. I was just doing my job."

She shakes her head right back. "You saved them, Doctor. You saved me. I will not let that debt go unpaid."

"With all due respect, ma'am, the negotiations--"

She waves him off. "That is a request for your Federation, Doctor. Your Federation and your captain. If they deserve that, they will earn it. My debt is to you and you alone."

"I'm flattered, but there's really nothing--"

"Nothing? Nothing you want that you think you can never have? Nothing that you think is impossible that I could grant you with my abilities?"

Sometimes Leonard forgets that aliens are so, well, _alien_. In this case, that he'd been treating a psychic through her delivery for the last eighteen hours. A psychic and, in her culture, a High Priestess. Someone that, in their tradition, carried the power of the gods. Leonard didn't much believe in that these days, but if it would make her feel better, he'd be happy to give her something to strive toward. So he opens his mouth to give a bullshit excuse about Joanna before she cuts him off.

"No. Not your daughter. You don't believe that to be impossible. You believe that one day you will see her again. I can give you the impossible, Doctor. Let me."

In an instant, the image of Jim, middle-aged and still alive flashes through his mind. But he knows his captain, knows his recklessness and his lack of respect for his own life. Knows that there's no way he'll live to see the other side of forty.

Knows there's no way Leonard won't outlive him.

The priestess's eyes soften. "Oh. Yes. That. That I can do."

Leonard blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"Your captain. I can see to it that he outlives you."

"I'm sure I don't--"

But then she's getting out of bed and Leonard is scrambling to try to get her to lie back down again while he shouts for the same attendants she is summoning, each of them with a different motive.

In the end, Leonard doesn't have enough authority--or else, his authority is now considered moot--to keep her from leading them all to the sanctuary and chanting over half a dozen different liquids before pouring them into two different containers, and corking one. She hands the other to Leonard, and signals for him to drink it.

Not wanting to be rude when he knows Jim's still negotiating, and hoping that delivering her children is enough to keep her from wanting to kill him, he swallows down the drink in one go. If he'd expected it to burn its way down his throat, he's wrong. Instead it's mostly tasteless, with just a hint of sweetness.

M'kaela nods, apparently satisfied, before striding out of the room, beckoning Leonard to follow her. He does, and it only takes three turns before he realizes they're heading toward the chamber the negotiations are taking place in. "Priestess--"

"I owe you a debt, Healer. They will respect that."

"But if we interrupt--"

She stops short, turning back to him. "Do you want this?"

For a moment, Leonard is unsure. He certainly doesn't want to think of outliving Jim, but it's also an inevitability. One he's trying trying trying to come to terms with.

Her face softens. "I can give you this, Healer. Let me."

Leonard just nods.

\----

The door doesn't quite bang open, but from the way every non-Federation individual in the room goes still, it might as well have. But Jim doesn't dare take his eyes off the emperor he's been negotiating with until the man gets to his feet and starts to speak.

"High Priestess--"

Jim turns to see the woman Bones had ushered out almost twenty hours earlier striding across the room toward them, now significantly less pregnant than she'd been then, with Bones trailing her. Jim gets to his feet as well, eyeing Bones cautiously, but Bones just shrugs, looking as lost as Jim feels.

The priestess, on the other hand, just waves them all off. "I am repaying a debt, Emperor, as is my due."

"Debt?"

She smiles softly. "All six of the children are safe."

"All... all six?" The emperor's voice betrays his surprise, and when Jim glances over his shoulder at the man, his eyes are wide and stunned.

"Yes, Emperor."

The emperor sits down heavily in his chair, staring at Bones like he's never seen him before.

The High Priestess M'kaela, for her part, just approaches Jim, meeting his eyes levelly. "You are fortunate to have such a talented healer in your care, Captain."

Jim feels his face melt into the fond smile it always does when someone praises Bones. "Indeed I am."

Her face stays grim and serious. "It would be in your best interest to respect the work that he does."

Jim opens his mouth to protest that no one respects what Bones does more than he does, but thinks better of it when he catches sight of the way Bones' eyebrow is creeping up his forehead. So instead, he just nods.

She smiles, wide and bright, before holding out a vial toward him.

"Priestess?"

"Your Healer's payment."

Jim glances at Bones over her shoulder, who just shrugs in a way that says _what can you do?_ Jim glances back down at the vial before mirroring Bones' shrug, taking the vial, uncorking it, and downing it in one go.

It burns, and leaves him coughing violently for almost a full minute, someone's hands--Spock's, he thinks--steadying him. When he straightens back up, eyes still watering, it's to see the priestess holding Bones back, whispering urgently to him. Bones' face is tight and drawn, but he's inclining his head toward her, apparently listening intently.

In the end, Bones nods once, looking like he'd rather not. The priestess releases him, before walking back up to her place on the emperor's left hand side. Bones slides into his own seat next to Uhura, who's looking at him anxiously, but he just waves her off, eyes intent on the priestess.

M'kaela turns to the emperor. "Now, where were we?"

\----

"What the hell was that?" Jim hisses as soon as they're back aboard the Enterprise.

Leonard shrugs.

"Don't give me that, Bones. What the hell happened while you were delivering those kids? The second you came back they all went completely deferential, like they couldn't wait to do whatever we wanted to become a part of the Federation. So what. did. you. Do?"

"I delivered her goddamn kids, Jim, what do you want me to say?"

"Obviously it was more than that."

Leonard shrugs helplessly, walking out of the transporter room toward the bridge because he knows Jim will follow. "It was a complicated delivery. I can see why it might be difficult to deliver all of the children safely. But I'm good at my job. Apparently," he throws over his shoulder snidely, "they, at least, can respect a good doctor's work."

He hears Jim stop short behind him, and lets his own feet come to a stop. He sighs heavily.

"That was uncalled for. I apologize."

"I respect you, Bones." Jim's voice is quiet, and a little hurt. "I respect everything that you do for the crew. We wouldn't have lasted a month out here without you. _I_ wouldn't lasted a month. You think I don't know that?"

Leonard closes his eyes. "I know you do. But you don't always act like it, Jim. You can't deny that."

Jim doesn't say anything for a long time. Then, "I can't. But I'm just doing my job, Bones."

"You're doing what you think is your job, Jim. But your job is to lead the ship, not risk your neck every other day."

"I can't put my crew in danger when there's something I could do instead. I can't, Bones, you know that."

Leonard closes his eyes, and breathes in deeply. "I do."

Jim walks around him, stopping in front of him and wrapping his arms around Leonard's elbows. "That drink she gave me. What was it?"

Leonard searches Jim's face. For a moment, he thinks about just telling him. But then M'kaela's words come back to him, that the deal is only effective so long as Jim doesn't know, and a part of him can't help but want to believe. "Superstition. Superstition and wishful thinking. Her way of trying to repay me. It was nothing, Jim."

"They certainly seemed to think it was something."

But Leonard just shakes his head. "It was nothing."

\----

Eventually, Jim lets himself believe it, and puts it in the back of his mind.

That doesn't mean he forgets. He just... represses.

He has enough to keep track of anyway without any more of Bones' weirdness.

\----

Leonard doesn't actually notice it happening at first. He's used to his body failing him as he nears hour fifteen of a shift, though usually it's his eyes that go first, blurring with fatigue. So the first sign that something's wrong is that it isn't eyes that go first.

It's his hands.

It's the way he fumbles putting a hypo away (he doesn't fumble on the patient; he's better than that, even in his exhaustion.) that gives him pause. The aches and pains are familiar, but now…. His hands are shaking, like they know something's coming, but he's not sure--

And then the pain lances through his stomach and he's doubling over, unable to stop himself from trying to steady himself on the operating table. Geoffrey is at his side in an instant, one hand at the small of his back. "Leonard?"

Leonard opens his mouth to try to say that he's fine when the pain comes lancing through him again, a burning line of pain and pressure slicing through his lungs this time. The pain is scalpel sharp, no hint of the dull ache that he usually associates with unexpected discomfort at the end of a shift, and Leonard can only clench his jaw and squeeze his eyes shut as he tries not to scream in pain.

When the pain subsides for a brief moment, Leonard shoves himself upright, staggering over to the array of hypo cartridges on the wall and fumbling a painkiller into his previously abandoned hypo, jabbing it fiercely into his own neck. As the painkiller hits his system, however, so does another wave of pain, seemingly unaffected by the drug. Leonard leans forward, the skin of his forehead hot against the cool metal of the hypo rack, every breath a labor that he can't seem to fight through.

Geoffrey is at his side again, gently coaxing Leonard away from the hypo rack. Leonard lets himself be half-carried to an empty bed, his whole body dragging with pain and fatigue, and it isn't until Geoffrey sucks in a sharp gasp and Leonard meets his wide, stunned eyes that Leonard starts to think that something might be wrong. Or at least, more wrong than he'd thought. Geoffrey is pressing the call button on the wall and grabbing a set of scissors in the same motion, slicing Leonard's uniform off in one go. Leonard frowns, having half a mind to tell Geoffrey off when he catches sight of the fabric.

There are two long, narrow lines of color on the fabric that weren't there this morning. _Blood_ , the professional in him realizes, _how--_ But then Geoffrey's settling him back on the bed and, oh, god, that. Chests aren't supposed to feel like that. He stares up at Geoffrey, wide-eyed and confused, when a strange sweetness spills over the back of his tongue, flooding his mouth.

Suddenly, Leonard understands. He's not sure how the taste triggers such a strong sense-memory in him, but it does. He knows what this is. So instead of fighting it, he closes his eyes and lets his mind drift.

\----

Jim stares down at where the alien's blade should have sliced him cleanly in half. The whole fight around them feels like it's come to a standstill even though he can hear the clatter of blades and the familiar sound of blasters being fired from the doorway. He should be dead. He should be _dead_ and he's not and that may be the strangest part of it all.

He looks up at his opponent and, suddenly terrified in the back of his mind, swings his own sword down and drives it an inch into the alien's shoulder. The alien screams and reels back, giving Jim enough time to look down and check for injuries.

There isn't even any blood.

The fear grips him again and it takes all his training to fight the way out of the whole mess with his landing party intact. Spock seems to have been the only one that noticed Jim's near brush with death, eyeing his captain with a dubious look that Jim can only shrug off, implying that he doesn't know what's going on either.

Heart in his throat, Jim leads the way back to the rendezvous point and call the Enterprise. They're beamed back aboard, and Jim would almost think nothing is wrong, except for the fact that Bones isn't there to meet them. It's not that it's Bones's job--Chapel's there to take care of any injuries, of which there are several--but Jim's gotten used to being met by his CMO rather than one of his nurses or doctors.

Chapel scans him, frowning at whatever she finds. "You should head to Medbay, Captain. Doctor McCoy will want to see to you."

Jim raises an eyebrow at her. "Is there cause for medical concern?"

She blinks up at him. "No, Captain, but--"

"Then I will stay with the landing party and debrief."

Chapel's eyes go stormy and her knuckles go white around her tricorder, but she doesn't say anything. That's always been Bones' move rather than hers. Jim just nods, already putting the strangeness of the fight out of his mind. He's fine, and his crew is fine; there's nothing else to worry about.

\----

When Leonard opens his eyes to see the sterile white ceiling of Medbay above him, his first thought is that whatever it was that M'kaela did hadn't worked, and that the visions behind his eyelids of Jim's body, severed and broken, were to be his reality. But when Geoffrey makes his way around the curtain separating Leonard from the rest of Medbay, there's only relief in his eyes, with no hint of mourning. It settles Leonard enough to ask a cautious question.

"What happened?"

Geoffrey's gaze goes a little dark. "I was hoping you could tell me."

Leonard groans, sitting up slowly. Geoffrey moves quickly to his side, an admonishment clearly ready on his lips that Leonard waves off. "I know, I know, my bad." He groans again, one hand coming up to touch the bandages on his chest. "I haven't the foggiest," he lies, letting a tiny frown form on his face. "There were…?"

"Lacerations," Geoffrey asserts, stepping easily into his role, though there's still something searching in his eyes. "Two across your chest. Rather deep, but not impossible to treat. Those, coupled with the pneumothorax and the _three separate rib fractures_ , should leave you with some discomfort and a limited range of motion for about three days, but with sufficient rest and treatment you will be fine."

Leonard nods. "Alright." He levers himself to his feet, ignoring the way Geoffrey's face goes even tighter with reproach. "Then I'll just--"

"Report to the Captain that you're off-duty for the next three days?"

"The Captain has enough to worry about," Leonard counters, voice cool and authoritative, "and I've got plenty of paperwork I can get caught up on while I'm healing. There's no need to inform him." Geoffrey's face pinches even tighter, and he huffs a little, but doesn't argue. Leonard nods and steps carefully around Geoffrey, making his way toward his office.

He has a call to make.

\----

Jim's surprised when he finds M'Benga alone in Medbay instead of accompanied by Bones. "Doctor M'Benga," he says, a confused smile on his face. "I thought Bones--"

"In his office," M'Benga says, a sharpness in his tone that Jim can't identify.

"Right," Jim says a little warily. "Thanks."

He slips past M'Benga toward Bones' office and raps lightly on the door. It takes a moment longer than normal, but then the door slides aside to reveal Bones, frowning warily at Jim. His face relaxes after a moment, though, and he sighs. "Get yourself in trouble down there again, Captain?"

M'Benga makes an undignified sound, and Bones looks up at him, the same wary look making its way back on his face. It's not a look Jim likes to see there, so he interjects. "A little bit, actually. Thought you'd want an update."

Bones purses his lips and nods slightly. "I can take it from here, Doctor," he says with that same sharpness that M'Benga had had in his tone a moment before. "I'll hold down the fort."

It's as much a dismissal as Jim has ever heard Bones utter, and it leaves a knot of tension in his stomach that doesn't dissolve until M'Benga has slammed his PADD onto an examination table and made his way out of Medbay. Even then, as Jim looks back up at Bones, the tension doesn't fully abate.

Bones sighs and gestures Jim toward one of the examination tables. "So, what happened down there?"

Jim cringes as he strips out of his uniform, knowing he's in for a tongue lashing. "The natives weren't too keen on listening to what we had to say. There was a bit of a firefight."

Bones rolls his eyes, reaching for his tricorder. "No surprises there," he mutters. "It never is just a routine mission when you're involved."

Jim glares at Bones, but doesn't comment on the remark. "That wasn't the weirdest part, though. One of the natives…." He swallows, knowing that this is the part Bones won't like. "He nearly cut me clean in half with his sword. Got me twice across the chest before I was able to take him down a notch myself."

If it hadn't been for years of practically living in each other's pockets, Jim wouldn't have noticed the stutter in Bones' hand as he went on running the tricorder over Jim's torso. "That so?" he asks, his voice just a shade too nonchalant.

Jim frowns. "Yeah. But… well, you can see it as well as I can. There's nothing there."

Bones doesn't quite meet his eyes as he speaks. "You sure you didn't just want to be playing hero a bit more today and make it up?"

Jim cuts a glare at Bones. "You know I don't do that any more."

Bones sighs. "Yeah, Jim. I know." He settles the tricorder down on the table beside Jim, meeting his eyes head-on. "But there's no evidence of any physical damage. Whatever happened out there, there's nothing here to make me think you're in any danger."

Jim searches Bones' eyes, unable to shake the feeling that there's he's missing something. "You're sure?"

Bones' eyes go sharp and dark. "I don't fuck around when it comes to your health, Jim."

Jim curls in on himself, suitably cowed. "I know. I just…." He sighs. "I know." Feeling suddenly embarrassed, he reaches for his uniform shirt, tugging it over his head. "Well then, if you're sure."

"I'm sure."

Jim nods. "Then I guess I'll follow up with Spock and see if he has any thoughts about what happened."

"Sounds like a plan," Bones concedes, already turning back to his office.

"Do you want me to send M'Benga back in here?"

Bones' back goes stiff for a second, but he shakes his head. "I'll keep my office door open. No need."

Jim frowns, further confused by the turn of events. "Alright. I'll see you in the mess tonight?"

Bones waves a hand at Jim over his shoulder but doesn't reply.

The whole thing leaves him feeling unsettled for the rest of the week.

\----

It's four months before it happens again, this time coming in the form of a chill setting into his bones. It's strange and disorienting and not as surprising as it should be given that the away team is in hour five of searching the floor of an alien ocean for Jim's crashed shuttle.

Leonard excuses himself from the bridge and goes to the Medbay, body already starting to shut down while it tries to save Jim's. By the time the door slides open to reveal a frowning Christine who immediately darts toward him, arms on his elbows as she steadies him. She searches his face, looking for an explanation, but Leonard can't get anything past his chattering teeth. She ushers him over to a biobed. Leonard treads carefully, conscious of the way his whole body is slowly shutting down and the potential for ventricular fibrillation. It's a struggle to stay conscious, and it takes everything he has to reach for the control panel of the biobed and enter the oxygenation level and temperature codes. Christine's eyes go wide in something too much like understanding, and Leonard can only hope that she doesn't catch on to the true depth of what's going on as he lets the biobed do its work.

He fades in and out of consciousness, not fighting it, just letting his body and M'kaela's magic do whatever it takes to keep Jim tethered to the land of the living.

He's not sure how long it is before he starts coming out of it, blinking slowly back to full consciousness. Christine's still in the Medbay, eyeing Leonard nervously. When he pushes himself slowly to sitting, she moves quickly to his side, one hand on his elbow. "Leonard?"

He smiles tiredly at her. "I'm alright Christine."

"The hell you are!" she snaps, and Leonard can only find the strength to let the affection melt into his face, not to argue. "Leonard, what--"

"It's…." Leonard swallows, then sighs, running a tired hand over his face. "It's complicated. Can we just leave it at that? It's complicated."

Christine goes on frowning, but nods slowly. "You'd tell me if it was something serious, though, right?"

Leonard gives her a half-hearted smile. "Don't ask me that, Christine."

Christine's lips thin, an angry look on her face, but she doesn't press. She knows it's a lost cause to try to fight Leonard when he's being stubborn.

If Leonard keeps an eye on the security feed while he waits for Jim to be brought back to the Enterprise, no one has to know but him. If he times his circuit back out into Medbay accordingly, no one has to know but him. And if he sends Christine back to her quarters earlier than normal so she doesn't see Jim when he comes in, no one has to know but him.

The longer he can keep this a secret, the more likely he is to be able to save Jim.

\----

They're planetside, dining with the local dignitaries when it happens. It's not that allergic reactions have been uncommon in Jim's tenure as captain of the Enterprise, but it's been quite some time since it's happened. So when the familiar sensation of being unable to breathe sweeps up over him, Jim reaches for Bones automatically. Bones' eyes go wide and he jumps into action automatically, grabbing a hypo from the small medkit at his side, tilting Jim's head to the side and administering the antihistamine. It gives Jim a bit of leeway, but even he can tell it's not going to be enough. He looks back at Bones, eyes wide, unable to hide the fear crawling in his chest.

Bones, for his part, just looks determined. "Spock," he says, voice sharp and stern, "we need to get him back to my quarters."

Jim doesn't hear how Spock replies, his whole head filling with cotton and his body with pain as he tries to stay conscious. He's distantly aware of being carried through the halls of the virtual palace they're in and then settled on a bed somewhere.

The thing is, he's used to pain. He's used to being incapacitated like this. But he's also used to Bones being fury and motion when it happens.

This, though. Bones steely and silent instead of loud and irritable, Bones moving with precision and intent instead of chaos and excess, Bones sending Spock away so that he can treat Jim alone. This is different.

And it isn't just Bones that's different. The allergic reaction is different too. It comes and goes in waves instead of the constant, cloying pressure that he's used to. But his brain is too fuzzy to make the connection, too disoriented to recognize the way Bones tenses every time Jim's pain subsides, in too much pain to connect the dots that some part of his hindbrain is desperately trying to make him understand.

When Bones finally puts him under, it's a welcome relief, and coming back to consciousness is equally so. He hadn't realized it until he'd reawoken, but some part of him had been convinced that that was going to be the end of him. That he wasn't going to go out in a blaze of glory, and would instead be killed by a goddamn fruitcake. Or. Well. Whatever it was that he'd had an allergic reaction to.

He's so relieved to be alive that he doesn't register the significance of the fact that Bones' shirt is as soaked through with sweat as Jim's own.

\----

The intervals are getting shorter. It's not that Leonard hasn't noticed, and it's not that he doesn't understand the significance--death is coming for Jim Kirk, and it will not be denied its prize--but he also doesn't want to look too closely at the intervals. The last thing he needs is to psyche himself out before their next brush with death and accidentally spill the beans and undo his last four and a half years of hiding and secrets.

And yet, when the sound of the bullet rings through the bridge from Jim's communicator where he's gotten into a tussle planetside, Leonard finds himself making the connection as though his subconscious had figured it out all on its own.

_Death's number._

As his faculties fail him in succession and he falls to the ground, it's something of a relief to know that, at long last, the wait is over.

Jim will live, and, perhaps, learn. That, at the end of the day (at the end of his _life_ ) is all that Leonard ever really wanted.

It's enough.

It's enough.

\----

(The sound echoes through the bridge, dull and damning and Hikaru glances over at McCoy on instinct alone. It's only years of practice and of knowing both the captain and the CMO that has him muting transmissions from the bridge to Kirk before he does anything else.

Then he calls M'Benga.

"Bridge to Medbay, we need immediate medical assistance."

"Isn't McCoy up there?" There's something irritated in the tone that Hikaru can't identify, nor does he particularly want to as he leaps from the captain's chair to McCoy's side. "Can't he--"

"No, he can't," Uhura interrupts, her voice strong and fierce even as Hikaru can see the way she's shaking.

"And why the hell not?"

"Because he's down, Doctor," Uhura says sharply. "McCoy's down."

There's a moment of silence, and then a curse followed by, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

It isn't until he's kneeling beside McCoy that Hikaru realizes that calling M'Benga may have been pointless. There's blood oozing thickly from the wound, but that isn't the fact that has Hikaru wondering if there's no saving McCoy.

It's the fact that the wound is dead center in McCoy's forehead.

There's yelling from Kirk's comm but Hikaru doesn't have the attention to deal with it. Kirk's as good as dead himself if McCoy's gone, especially with the way the natives….

"Oh fuck," Hikaru whispers, and he clambers back to the captain's chair, giving care of McCoy over to Uhura. He immediately reopens transmission to the captain. "Captain, you need to get back to the ship stat."

"Can't, Sulu," Kirk says sharply. "Gotta figure out why--"

"Why the bullet they just tried to put through your skull didn't do a damn thing?"

Kirk is silent on the other end. Then, "How did you know that?"

"Get back to the ship, Captain. I think the answer may be waiting for you here."

The look on Kirk's face when he comes thundering into the bridge fifteen minutes later is broken enough that Hikaru can barely find the strength to face him.

"Captain. I'm so-- I didn't-- This was my--"

"Don't," Kirk says, voice thin and uncertain. "This wasn't… This didn't… This was no one's fault but mine."

"Captain, you didn't--"

"No," Kirk says, shaking his head at Uhura. "No, I didn't know. But the signs were all there. I should've…." He makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat and backs slowly away as M'Benga lifts McCoy's body onto a stretcher and wheels him out of the bridge. "I'm sorry. If you'll excuse me."

Kirk doesn't leave his quarters for the next eight hours, and, if Hikaru's being honest, he can't blame the captain.

How do you forgive yourself for being your best friend's cause of death?)

**Author's Note:**

> [Come hang with me on tumblr!](http://hollyandvice.tumblr.com/)


End file.
